<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type> <META content="MSHTML 5.00.2919.6307" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>On Wed, 04 Jul 2001 16:00:52 -0700 "Diane Hofstetter" <<A href="mailto:dianepianotuner@hotmail.com">dianepianotuner@hotmail.com</A>= > writes:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 10px; PADDING-LEFT: = 10px"> <DIV></DIV> <DIV>  Do you suppose I could have mixed the bronze powder and some= powdered dye stains in the shellac to make it look darker?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thanks again for the help,</DIV> <DIV>Diane</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <P>HI Diane -</P> <P>Absolutely!  You could even adjust the hue red to orange to = yellow, etc. with the addition of dyes.  A concern however, if this were the= actual finish coat, would be that alcohol soluble aniline dyes are not = real lightfast, and in very short order there could be a shift in color where = any direct sunlight was allowed to get to it.  Of course, in most cases,= this would hopefully be a minimal problem!  An alternative would be to = use the newer metallized dyes, such as Transtints.  They are very lightfast,= and easy to use.  This could certainly be used in touch up situations = where you are trying to match an existing color with a small repair.</P> <P>I normally just mix in a bit of gold powder in the sealer coats of = shellac as a means of "heading toward" the gold color that I am trying to accomplish.  I prefer the finish coats to be lacquer, primarily = because I think it lays out better than shellac when sprayed.</P> <P>Happy experimenting!</P> <P>Mark Potter</P> <P><A href="mailto:bases-loaded@juno.com">bases-loaded@juno.com</A></P> <P> </P> <P> </P></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>